Pain Killer: Nigerians And Their Short Memory -By Emmanuel E. Ndubueze

Sometimes when career politicians speak we find many meanings to it, most times, such statements become issue of national discourse in many radio and television stations. Just like every other politician, the immediate past president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari had on 7th July, 2022 accused Nigerians of ‘short memory’ disease, a comment he made while addressing a cross-section of All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwarts and delegates during APC’s national Convention. According Buhari; “…Fellow delegates, fellow men, women, youths, citizens of our country, many people have short memories, but let us remember the situation we inherited…”

While that statement received a cold reception from some sections of the Nigerian population, it was not so with everyone, including myself who saw it as a true reminder of whom we truly are, ‘a people with very short memory’. We tend to forget pain and agony too suddenly. Beyond the fact that politics, no matter how badly played benefits some members of the society, it still does not justify this our disease of short-memory – we forget too suddenly!

One of the very good attributes of democracy is its ability to serve as a weapon in the hands of the citizens to place every politician where they belong when an election season comes, and no matter how powerful a politician becomes, in civilized climes, he cannot outgrow the power in the hands of the citizens to sack him from any political office using the power in their votes. Unfortunately, it seems that democracy is not the same in our world, or may be because we have short memory, oh!

Just as in the yesteryears, there have been a sharp but not unexplainable increase in spate of protests rocking some parts of the country over the rising prices of foodstuff and general cost of living in Nigeria, This has seemingly erased the middle class and plunged many Nigerians into hunger and untold hardship. For the sake of our ‘short memory’, may I remind: this is not unprecedented, this is not the first time Nigerians are forced into suffering and pain owing to selfishness of politicians and poor, careless policies of government, this is also not the first time Nigerians are protesting high cost of living. In fact, it got to a point where poor and suffering Nigerians were made an object of mockery before the floor of the Nigerian Senate (an assembly of Distinguished men and women elected by the Nigerian public to the Hallowed Chamber to represent their interests) when an elected Senator raised a motion ‘to let the poor breathe’, the senate passed the motion while the Senate President took it up and remarked ‘let the poor breathe’, they all laughed. We laughed too. Well they came to explain it was not mockery, but we don’t care, we have short memory, we have forgotten.

To say the least, we have had it so bad in the past, government after government but we do not remember, because of our short memory. One need not wonder or ask questions about the recent protests in many parts of the country in places like Kwara, Niger, Osun, Sokoto, Lagos, Kano, Kogi and most recently Oyo while more protests are expected in the coming days. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had reported that Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 29.90 per cent in January 2024 from 28.92 per cent in December 2023, compared to 26.98 per cent  when the President Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food security. While we may not all understand what those figures mean, we can all feel the heat and the hardship is greatly felt by the people as there has been a drastic reduction in their purchasing power due to the surge in the costs of food items and other consumables. It has also reduced the sales of foodstuffs in the market, I dare not mention insecurity which has become the mother of all evils in the recent time. Some may say we have never had it this bad but I may disagree because of our short memory.

We seem to adapt so easily to pains and hardship purposely inflicted on us either through acts of selfishness by politicians or those who are only concerned with snatching and grabbing power even when they have no plan or policy – because it is just their turn, we forget our pains and rally round them only to continue to wallow in abject poverty and hunger while the people we wanted to ‘teach bitter lessons seem to be better off’. We cry almost every day of how badly a government is performing but once another election season cycles in, we forget our pains and pull back into our hard shell of religious and ethnic sentiments. It is not our fault though, they give us pain killer to end our sufferings and forget how badly we have been treated. To the youths, a thousand or two is enough to change protest songs into chants of political praise as they fall over themselves and attack anyone whose refuse to ‘see the light’ with them. For traditional and religious leaders, a sack full of hard currency is enough pain killer that does not just suppress pain but as well gives energy to stand up ‘for the truth’ while they laboriously market the rotten product to their own people who must patronize or be marked as ‘enemies of the state’. To the elites, ‘a promise’ is enough ginger to make them switch from point A to B, doing everything possible to secure the seat for the ‘right candidate’ even if it takes manufacturing and maneuvering figures to make a midnight announcement in favor of their pay masters who will fail and blame past administrations, the list goes on and on.

Not until we cure ourselves of this short memory disease, they will continue to take us for granted!